The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday said its expenses exceeded its revenue by N9 billion in the past three years.
The agency disclosed this in a document submitted to the Senate Joint Committees on Finance, National Planning, Petroleum Upstream, Downstream and Gas chaired by Senator Adeola Olamilekan.
A breakdown of the deficit in the document showed that the commission recorded an N2.9 billion deficit in 2019; N4.3billion in 2020 and N1.7 billion as of June 2021.
The Director-General of SEC, Lamido Yuguda, at the interactive session with the committee members on the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), attributed the deficit to the global economic meltdown and COVID-19 pandemic last year.
Yuguda explained that the agency’s projected revenue for 2021 was N11.5billion with a personnel cost of N10.2billion.
The Senate panel expressed concern over the low revenue generation of the commission, saying that the deficit may lead to bankruptcy.
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Olamilekan said, “Your submission gives us a wrong impression about the SEC. You are a regulator to businesses that are making money but you aren’t making money. You may need to look at how to regulate your personnel to generate money. You need to cut down on costs.
“Your personnel cost, your top profile takes about 70 percent of total emolument of N9bn, only 30 percent go to lower cadre.
“You need to stop the trend, this is the second year you are coming with a deficit budget,” he said.
A member of the committee, Senator Kashim Shettima (APC Borno), challenged the Director-General to think out of the box.
“In the next two years, you are going to go bankrupt. Right now, you are in deficit and unless you come up with solutions, you are going to go insolvent and won’t be able to meet your needs.
“We are challenging you to go back to the drawing board and find solutions to your financial situation,” the lawmaker said.
